


La Chatte et La Souris

by WaldosAkimbo



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Let's investigate a freak show, While impressing our girlfriends, oo la la, with french
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 08:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11870667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Bit of cat and mouse as Holtzmann tries to figure out the best way to woo Erin. All while the team goes to investigate a haunting in Scollay Square. We're talking some PT Barnum shit here, folks.





	La Chatte et La Souris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holtzmann is aiming to impress. With some French. Classy? It is! Also, let's introduce the team, because that's just how we roll.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The titles is literally The Cat and the Mouse. I think. I think I got that right. My french is pretty rudimentary.  
> ANYWAYS! Ladies, step up, we're getting some stuff about a haunting Massachusetts. You interested?

“ _Une abielle_.” Holtzmann extended her jaw, scooping up the vowels, letting her tongue dip and snap back up as she overemphasized the accent. “One (1), uh, bee.” The reactivation thermal port sparked under a livewire draped across its portal like the worst simile to a spider’s web. Holtzmann barely leapt back when it singed her fingers, instead ignited by inspiration. “ _Une araignée_. Ha, one (1), uh, spider. Uh. Web.”

Patty came into the room, dropping off a heavy bag on the table near the entrance that was already teetering unsteadily with textbooks. The clock above them said 8:00. Precisely. Today, Patty had on a stone-washed denim skirt, bright pink top, matching lipstick, and three beautiful stripes of neon green braided into her hair. Her jewelry announced her, her fingernails did not. She smiled, but had a quizzical look to her, a tweaked eyebrow as she assessed their mad scientist of the team.

“What’re you doin’ over there?” asked Patty after she finished sorting her bag.

“Physically, mentally, or spiritually?” Holtzmann asked around her #e0c73d (rgb 244, 199, 61) shade glasses—a degree more orange than she preferred, but the plastic around the bands nestled in tightly against her ears, which she could appreciate during her more frenetic or, some might say, enthusiastically deranged dance sequences.

“Yeah, you were mutterin’ _some_ thing there,” said Patty. She gave her a friendly but ultimately dismissive wave.

“Practicing,” Holtzmann said. “Calculating. And repairing this, which is going to be a de _light_ when we have to bust anything above a category two down in the sewers again.”

“Oh yeah. Yeah, cause that was a real treat.”

Patty scoffed as she flipped her purse over and dumped a few snacks out onto the table, hefting a caramel-colored snack bar in her hand before she tossed it over to Holtzmann. Peanut butter. Yum. Holtzmann tucked the treat into her overalls’ pocket there at the front and continued with her work.

“Gotta admit. We got some _sick_ dogs afterwards at that street vendor.”

“No, you got food poisoning. Big difference,” said Patty, pointing at Holtzmann all the way across the lab from the safety of her desk. “That’s sick.”

“I believe I used the term correctly.”

The clock above them ticked on over to 8:03. While nobody else had a certain rigidity to their schedule like Patty did—the woman arrived every morning at 8:00 am, on the dot, not a second before or after, and if she _did_ they should all know that Patricia Tolan had been abducted and the woman in their office was an imposter, so Holtzmann was given the unofficial/unspoken/definitely untested “go” to try out a new vaporizer on said imposter—Holtzmann had come to rely on the fact that the rest of the team would follow more or less in the following order: first would be Kevin, stumbling but all around complete in his complete Kevin-ness. To quantify it is an impossibility. To dress it is a chore. Money on the barrel it would be white T, light jeans, and flip flops. Glasses were a must. Abby would be at the station in about seven minutes with messy bun, messier attire, sensible yet stylish glasses and socks, not matching, and a quick, chaste hug for her favorite goldilocks gal pal (butt squeeze always a plus, if you can get it). She’d be followed by a very weary-looking Dr. Gilbert at who knows when, just probably before noon. Since exiting the rigidity of academia, Erin’s internal circadian rhythm has been thrown for a loop. Poor, sleepy, night-owl Erin in a sensible cardigan and pleated skirt, probably ranging in either the nude or more peach color pallet. Hair brushed into submission with straight bangs and a tight bun. Blush, but only as an afterthought and not a deliberate choice. Socks, matching. Hug, sans.

Holtzmann knew this because, despite their better efforts, she spent almost every day and night at the station. It was her proverbial home. Her literal sanctuary. Her _Casa de Étude Fant_ _ôme,_ pardoning the mixed linguistic morphology. Nobody needed to know her actual home, because she wasn’t there anyways. Only her collection of vintage enamel pins and socks. And a succulent of the chocolate soldier variety. Which might be dead. Probably.

Someone stumbled across the threshold, tripping on a size fourteen sneaker encased around a size thirteen foot. Holtzmann felt a smile creep up on her face as Kevin tripped his way towards Patty’s desk to accept his morning protein bar. She’d been wrong about the flip flops. Owed herself ten bucks.

“Hey, Kev,” said Patty with a bubbly attitude that flooded the lab. She leaned across her desk, flashing all her brilliant teeth up at the receptionist. “How you doin’ today?”

“Hey Patty,” Kevin answered in his usual Labrador-puppy-human-hybrid way. Literal rays of golden sunshine could radiate around his empty head and he’d look no less Kevin. Of course, a spontaneous halo apparition might be just the thing to test out a new instrument Holtzmann had designed for a more non-invasive reading on possessions and/or attached entities. “What’re the three best Ghostbusters in town got on their docket today, ey?”

“Three?” Patty asked. She pointed at all of them with a hasty circle of her finger. “Kev, I don’t know how to tell you this, but Abby and Erin aren’t even in yet. I’m not gonna ask. He can count, right? Kev, baby, you can count, right?”

“Ah, who needs ‘em, right?” Kevin gave Patty a playful slap on the shoulder, a little tap of his knuckles, before he took the snack that was offered to him. “Oo! Strawberry yogurt. Yer the best, Patty.”

“Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you scoot on down to the phones in case anybody has an emergency.”

“You got it, Boss Lady.”

Kevin saluted with the protein bar in hand, wincing when the plastic corner touched his eyebrow. His toe hooked around his ankle and he fell out of the room in just about the same fashion as he entered it. There wasn’t even a proper sill striped across the floor to block his big feet. Perhaps an invisible one then, since Kevin caught it literally every single time.

“If we keep _feeding_ it, it’ll just keep coming _back_ ,” Holtzmann said with exaggerated neck movements.

“Somebody gotta take care of you guys,” Patty answered. She was switching over tapes to their third EVP recorder and had her headset cocked up around one ear. Patty had the best ears of the team. Best hair, too, if there was a competition, which Holtzmann held on a daily ranking ten-point style/texture/color/and taste scale. “You know how to cook food?”

“Patty, my love, I could make a Beef Wellington that would _kill_ you.”

“I don’t doubt it. I do _not_ doubt that. At all.”

Patty placed the earphones properly around her head, nodding to herself.

“ _Du boeuf_ ,” said Holtzmann as she stretched her mouth again. “Beef. _Du boeuf effrayant._ Some scary beef. _Boeuf criant_. Uh, well, um, screaming beef.”

Patty gave her one last point, a look, and a “I don’t wanna know,” before she started diving into the EVPs they had saved over the past forty-eight hours or so. One does not take a day off of EVPs unless one wants to sift through hours and hours of static. Which one was going to have to do regardless. Double-which, as arguments stand, is exactly why Holtzmann convinced Patty she had the best hearing and wouldn’t it be swell if she did the EVPs because that stuff put Jillian to sleep, absolutely, no questions asked, point, blank, fire. Maybe sleep would be good. When was the last time she slept? Twenty minutes ago, with the five minute alarm set before Patty came into the station, obviously. Duh. Where was she going with this?

French lessons.

Yeah, exactly. Hotlzmann had been practicing French phrases since she woke up. And before she went to bed last night. She nodded, rolled the ol’ internal rolodex, and picked up her mental checklist on animals. Because first was names, then it was numbers, then it was colors, then it was more complicated French numbers, then it was animals. And she was on animals. And she recited the animals to herself, ensuring their pronunciation based off her quick review of a CD she’d checked out of the library. She was on, “ _le tigre_. The tiger,” when Abby barged into the lab at, look at that, 8:13.

“—akes all day and does anybody know anything about old freak shows because—”

“Uh, hold up,” said Patty. Holtzmann had dropped everything when Abby barged through the doorway, talking a mile a minute. She hopped around her station to catch her friend, absolutely primed for that good ol’ butt-squeezin’ hug. “How about, ‘Good morning?’”

“Right.” Abby smiled, big, beautiful, enveloping her entire face from eyes to cheeks to teeth to chin. Holtzmann smiled along with it. “Right, of course. Good _morning_ , Patty. How was your evening, Patty? Did you…oh, is that a chocolate graham bar for me?”

Patty rolled her eyes as she picked the protein bar off her table and waved it in front of her face.

“It is,” said Patty, but jerked it back as Abby came over to collect it. “Ah ah, wait.”

“What?” Abby asked. She read Patty’s face and cocked her hip to the side. “I said ‘good morning.’ Didn’t I say ‘good morning?’”

“She did,” Holtzmann mouthed over Abby’s shoulder.

“Yeah, but it was all sarcastic and whatnot. That ain’t fair. You don’t get this unless you say it with feeling.”

“I am full of feelings,” said Abby, brushing her hand up to her chest. “I am a literal swimming pool of feelings, Patty. So.”

“So?”

“So! So, I…uh….” Abby sighed, hunching over slightly before she picked herself up again, back straight as a rod. “Good morning.”

Patty extended the protein bar and said, “That’s not great, but it’s better.”

“Better’s better,” sang Holtzmann, stepping in behind Abby like a cat, both in silence and in enormous potential to accidentally trip her best friend. She did not.

“Better’s better,” Abby said back, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “So, about my thing.”

“I believe it was old freak shows,” said Holtzmann.”

“It was. Patty? Tell me you have some history on freak shows in, and I’m going strictly off the petticoats for this one, somewhere around the 1800s?”

“You want something on good ol’ Phineas Taylor?” Patty asked, already unwinding the chord to the EVP headphones and placing them gently back onto the cradle there next to the machine.

They were going to be _weeks_ behind on listening to them at this point. Not that it had ever proven to be useful at all, but the thought of literal days sitting there, housing potential voices? It made Holtzmann’s teeth itch. There were possible ghost recordings chatting up and down the lab, what with all the extra activity they’d primed in the city and they were just going to be sitting there _right next to her_ while she was tooling away in the lab well beyond the witching hour, oh god, Jillian was actually going to have to listen to them and make sure they were all scrubbed clean oh _god_ it was going to be so _boooooorinnnnng._

“Who?” Abby asked, squinting a little while she was trying to come up with the answer before it was given to her.

“P.T. Barnum. I’m only guessing, cause it’s the circus.”

“Well then don’t say ‘Phineas Taylor,’ like we know what that _means_.”

“I did,” Holtzmann said quietly, and dinged the dish in front of her.

“Oh you did _not_ ,” said Abby.

“Nuh-uh. You guys can tout all of your science mumbo jumbo like it’s as simple as ABCs. I don’t talk astrophysicists with Holtzie. Let me have this.”

“I can talk astrophysicists into some of the dumbest stuff,” said Holtzmann with a short laugh.

“We _do_ ,” said Abby. “We let you. We.... Look. Okay. Okay, you got me in a corner here. Look.” She really was just put out. She’d get over it in about a second or so. “So, like, P.T. Barnum. Fine. I _guess_. Did he do freak shows?”

“Honey, he practically invented it.”

“Did he?”

“Kinda? Look, when he bought Scudder’s American Museum, he’s the one who put in human attractions with everything else. He would love the claim to fame,” said Patty as she rolled her eyes. “Dude was a promoter. You got stuff already out there like the Elephant Man and the Siamese Twins, but P.T. Barnum was the dude with General Tom Thumb. And he got into the circus game _late_ , but he was all about museums showing off weird people for money. That and anti-contraception laws, which is…weird.”

“That _would_ explain all the babies,” said Abby as she gently tapped her chin.

“What?”

“Ooo, _les enfants_ ,” said Holtzmann, perking up again.

“Only lez infant is you.”

“Aw, are you calling me a baby gay, Patty? Cause, while wildly inaccurate, I do enjoy the sentiment. I really do.”

Patty flashed her smile, crinkling the edges of her eyes in delight. You could always trust Patty with a smile. She had the perfect charm about her. That, and Holtzmann really relied on their faces, their mouths and everything, and if she should be doing the same thing. Smile? Not smile? Grimace sometimes. Frown very irregularly, but there was some use to it. Human emotions, right? What a gas.

“Anyways,” said Abby, waving her hand between them. “I got this call on my way in for the…wait. Where’s Erin?”

“By my calculations,” said Holtzmann and looked down at her wristwatch, touching the buttons on the side as she scrolled through month, stop watch, and military hour modes, “she should be arriving in seven minutes.”

“That girl,” said Abby, her fists going straight to her hips as she looked up and down the lab. “You’d think a professor would be punctual. What is keeping her up so late these days?”

“What indeed,” said Holtzmann with a conspiratorial tenting of her fingers. Patty glanced her way, reading something lewd in the gesture that was only half-accurate. Dream a dream of times gone by is what Holtzmann said, if she felt like quoting Broadway.

“So, _anyways_ ,” said Patty, still giving Holtzmann a side-eye. “This mean we got a job?”

“Yeah we got a job,” said Abby, lighting up again. “There’s what can only be described as a manifestation of entities in an abandoned warehouse in, and I’m already apologizing for the drive, Scollay Square.”

“Massachusetts?” Patty asked, balking at the location while Holtzmann already dug out her phone to Google the time. “Honey, that’s a, what, four _hour_ drive?”

“Three hours and fifty-two minutes if we manage to skate around this construction here,” said Holtzmann, showing off her screen.

“And we don’t got anything local to worry about? You want P.T. Barnum? What about his American Museum? That’s in town _and_ it burned down, so you know it’s gotta be good. Why not just stay local?”

“No, I mean, we _can_ ,” said Abby as she peeled back the wrapper to her protein bar and started nibbling at one of the corners. “I could go looking around. But this is, like, big. Big big, I mean. The place is rumored to have seventy-three entities and, at the sounds of things, at least five class three apparitions. This is, like, it’s big, right? That’s big.”

“What’s big?” asked Erin, coming through the entryway with her head almost submerged in an oversized handbag.

“Nice of you to finally grace us with your presence, Erin,” said Abby, rolling her eyes dramatically.

Even if Abby was actually annoyed, Hotlzmann’s stomach fluttered uncontrollably and she stepped up to her counter again, pressed against the impressive new apparatus she’d been building for the better part of three weeks. It was almost done and she really wanted to show it off.

“ _Bonjour, mademoiselle._ ”

“Hey, guys,” said Erin, sounding winded and a little lost. That hair, though. It was straight as a rail. Perfect auburn sheets atop her perfect little head. “Sorry I’m late. Were we already grouping for something or what? I came in and heard big, so. Big mission? What’s up?”

So far, Erin wasn’t impressed by that flawless French execution. Hotlzmann needed a minute to regroup, recharge, refocus the forces.

“Okay, yeah, so who’s gonna give me ninety bucks to go buy snacks?” asked Holtzmann, eyeing Abby. “I’ll make sure it’s all the accoutrements of a child let loose in a candy store.”

“No. No, I’ve been bringing in healthier snacks all week. We’re not ruining it with gummy bears and sour patch kids.”

“Come on, Patty Cakes,” said Holtzmann with a leer.

“Baby, how many times I gotta tell you don’t call me ‘Patty Cakes.’”

“Yeah, 873,” Holtzmann answered as she adjusted her glasses. “I’m going for a cool 1k.”

She flapped her hand in the air, a clear pantomime of needing cash, before Patty finally conceded and said she’d only pay if she came along and helped picked out the snacks. It was a fair give and take. Maybe they could discuss the whole French tactic on the way over to the store.

“What French tactic?” Patty asked once they were on the street, zipping along through the crowds.

“Patty, come _on_. The gummy bears aren’t going to pick themselves out.”

“No, hold up, you’re trying to play me with French lessons to get your artificially flavored corn syrup! I’m not gettin’ fooled into this. Holtzie. Holtzie!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Four. HOURS? That's gonna take a lot of gummy bears. And this whole thing was going to be a one-shot story, but I LITERALLY cannot do that. Check my history of writing. Cannot, will not. I don't know how. Cool. Now, I have to go do a lot more research into the dime museums.


End file.
